Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Math professor Andy Bartlett Monday on SCSU's campus.
The word on Southern Connecticut State University’s (SCSU) campus Monday was college math — for local high schoolers.
No college students were to be seen on the college campus Monday, because it was spring break.
Instead, dozens of high schoolers roamed the grounds. They were there as part of a Mathematical Puzzle Programs (MaPP) competition.
SCSU mathematics Professor Andrew Bartlett was there, too, helping out with the competition. He talked about that during a conversation on the“Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
Bartlett took a break from his usual tasks of creating assignments for his college students and doing research of the extreme value theory in relation to climate change, in order to guide the high school students from Hamden and New Haven Monday through escape room style math puzzles. The event engaged the students with answering several geometry and linear algebra equations that, once solved, allowed them to move on to different areas of the campus.
Barlett warms up with a geometric jig on near empty campus Monday.
Bartlett warmed up for the morning of math with a “geometric jig” that helped him to get a few fitness steps in while jumping back and forth in place.
This semester Bartlett is teaching data science, statistics, and Calculus 1 courses for his colelge students.
He has taught at SCSU for the past two years. The spring semester and Monday event gave Bartlett the time to learn the campus better and meet his students in person after teaching fully remote last year.
Bartlett refrained from giving his students new math assignments over spring break. Instead he gave them time to make up previous assignments.
In addition to putting together assignments for his courses. Bartlett said. he plans to spend his “break” cleaning and playing tennis at Wallingford Doolittle Park courts.
Bartlett’s love for math developed when he took Calculus 2 as an undergrad.
Learning about sequences and series — which Bartlett described as the “good stuff” — he knew he wanted to dive into the field of mathematics to be challenged by the puzzles of math on a daily.
Watch the full interview below.